Phoenixart's blog

Don’t loose your faith

Piero — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:49:34 +0000

Macro

Piero — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:24:10 +0000

When I bought my Canon 7D one of the first thing I wanted to do so bad was shooting macro. I always loved such abstract stuff that nature brings to our eyes. Thus I added an extension tube sets to my gears and I started to have fun.
It was a while I wasn’t shooting macros though. Somehow tonight I felt I wanted to and so I did.
Just another piece of nature.

Words in the picture are from Rimbdau’s poem “Flower”

The macro comes from a dried artichoke:

Some clouds over Santa Monica

Piero — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:15:43 +0000

Nice, windy day with beautiful clouds.

Some Skecthes

Piero — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:09:54 +0000

I was thinking to buy a tablet for home since a while now. I already used the Intuos 4 lot of times at work, really good tablet but just never got real advantage of it as I always used it as mouse replacement. Also, it was the medium size and if you ask me I never felt really comfortable with it since I use the keyboard a lot. As switching between tablet and keyboard is mandatory for my habits that means that my posture it’s awkward most of the time. Said that, I wanted to give the small tablet a try and eventually I went for a Bamboo Connect. I wasn’t really sure about this tablet as I thought it wasn’t precise enough for sketching. Well, it’s really a good tablet! Perfect size to don’t get mad with my posture and great control of the pressure.

I’m enjoying it a lot and I’m really having fun with MyPaint.

Look up

Piero — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:33:47 +0000

Not much time lately. I’ve started a new image in Softimage that I’ll post soon.
Anyway I was checking some old pictures I took a few time ago and I found the following one. Nothing exciting, but then I played a bit with it and I thought that rotated could become more interesting. Also I find that black & white suits better in this case.

Look up!

[the original]

Ok, let’s make it simple

Piero — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:23:52 +0000

Hard to pass a night without touching SI, even though it’s just to throw out some basic stuff. So, after messing around with Power Extrude I’ve had to add a floor. And then a light. And eventually I wanted to see a different material from the default one. So, here it is.

A Silent Night & a Getty Villa

Piero — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:14:13 +0000

There’s no particular connection between the two pictures below. They were just hanging on my desk for a while, then I decided to post them here. It’s been a nice Christmas and lately I’ve got a very relaxing day at the Getty Villa.
Well, probably they both recall me good moments, that’s a connection after all.

SI: little steps forward

Piero — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:50:52 +0000

Another little test playing with Softimage and Final Gather. Not hard to admit: playing with this lighting stuff in Mental Ray is *so* different!

My feeling is that at the beginning one is gonna spend a bit more time to figure out how to get the proper parameters that play well with the scene (still fiddling with FG settings.) But is a time well spent as it then gets easier to get more convincing results.

This image is a bit Soft

Piero — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:27:43 +0000

So, what’s the deal? Well, I’m trying to overcome the first obstacles as I’m thinking I want seriously study Softimage (formerly known as XSI.)
Really, this is a great package. Of course I still use Blender and C4D with their and my limitations. In fact I prefer C4D when it comes to drop quick mograph stuff, yet Blender is my preferred weapon of choice when it comes to model, shoot quick scenes setup (still so fast about lighting) but not much about motion graphics.
Right, there is no perfect tool. Nonetheless it’s the artist not the tool, even though I find the latter not exhaustive (let’s try to paint an oil portrait with charcoal.)
So, why Softimage?

Yeah, I know: the lighting isn’t accurate, the buildings need an acceptable cutout, and so on…

Initially my attention has been caught by ICE
Somehow it reminded me C4D MoGraph, but at a closer look it’s been clear that was a completely different story. The possibilities are endless, and as usual that comes at a price: in fact to get the most out of it one needs to study how it works digging through nodes, less or more complex setups and some math would be more then helpful. I dunno yet how far I’ll go with this ICE stuff.
The good news is that SI (Softimage) is not only ICE! The more I use it the more I find it truly impressive.

First 2012 picture

Piero — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:43:09 +0000

Actually is not the first of 2012 as I took this picture on the 31th. But all in all is the first picture that I’m posting on my refreshed blog

It’s been a foggy day, somehow unusual for Santa Monica even though we may get haze now and then, but this was pretty foggy.
Anyway, I saw this nice rays across the threes. That beautiful light caught my sight and I thought it could be a nice shot.